


Written on Your Skin

by smallerontheoutside (theinvisiblequestion)



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Copious Amounts of Artistic License, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, extremely not canon compliant, falling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-21
Updated: 2019-07-21
Packaged: 2020-07-09 21:34:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 1,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19894693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theinvisiblequestion/pseuds/smallerontheoutside
Summary: Aziraphale has never seen the gold that marks him as an angel, has never read the words, the last thing he will ever hear from the person he will love unconditionally and eternally. Crowley wonders what's written in Celestial on Aziraphale's back.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Fiendishly inspired by:
> 
> https://smallerontheoutside.tumblr.com/post/115727683309/aceofultron-soulmate-au-where-instead-of-your

At some point during a committee meeting of the Plan for Earth, it had been decided that there would be humans, that humans would be given free will, that humans would also be given language, and that each human would know their soulmate by the last words they’d hear from them. Aziraphale had thought this last one was a bit much. It was a bit depressing, if he was brutally honest, which he never was if there was any chance he’d be overheard.

After the first rain, Crowley had reassured Aziraphale by relaying the words Eve knew. “They won’t invent carts for  _ ages _ ,” he’d added.

Aziraphale didn’t actually know until much later  _ how _ Eve had known the last thing Adam would say to her. As it happened, it was a mark on the skin which was supposed to be writing, but since writing hadn’t been invented yet, anybody who couldn’t read just  _ knew _ when they looked at their mark. It appeared in various places, mostly at random. Aziraphale met a young man in the twelfth century who had it written across his face. Poor boy couldn’t read, and neither could his family, but when he saw his reflection in a pool of still water, he knew.

Caligula’s had been, to nobody’s surprise, written on the inside of his thigh. Aziraphale knew exactly when the words were said, and by whom, but Caligula got stabbed a few days later and Aziraphale didn’t see the point in telling anybody. They all seemed rather intent on forgetting him anyway.

He thought, for six thousand years, that  _ soulmate _ was a role which lasted into eternity in either direction, but since humans didn’t live quite that long they never got to find that out; Last Words were Last Words because someone died shortly thereafter. But then the twenty-first century happened, and the world tried to end, and in a dimly lit, plant-filled flat in Mayfair, a certain demon was tracing the angelic markings on Aziraphale’s back with a finger.

He hadn’t meant to disrobe, but he’d been on his way to a well-deserved bath and a good think when Crowley had interrupted and started a philosophical and logistical discussion which ended with Aziraphale in blue tartan pyjama bottoms, the matching shirt crumpled up in his lap.

They hadn’t even… you know… but Crowley had asked, because he’d never seen Aziraphale without a shirt on, and he would need to replicate the details properly.

“What does it say?” Crowley asked. “I can’t read it.”

Aziraphale didn’t know. He’d never actually looked. “It says something?”

“Doesn’t it?” Crowley lifted his own shirt to expose a dark, wine-red series of splotches across his bare chest which looked a bit like writing. Aziraphale recognized the script, but he didn’t know how to read it.

“Does yours?”

Crowley yanked his shirt down and looked away instead of giving a proper answer. He picked up his mobile phone and Aziraphale heard an electronic beep. Crowley handed him the phone, and Aziraphale nearly threw it across the room. On the pale expanse of his back, a phrase in Celestial, picked out in gold:  _ You know what to do. Do it with style. _


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'all got me. I couldn't just leave it hanging like that.

It was too much.

Aziraphale was not surprised at the immediate implications of the gilt lettering etched into his skin. He knew how he felt about Crowley, how he’d always felt about Crowley. The less obvious implications, however, terrified him. What impending calamity would leave Aziraphale with nothing more than Crowley’s ansaphone?

Ineffable, indeed, he thought bitterly. They’d avoided the consequences of their fondness for each other—which, as it happened, was Written—for six thousand years, and for what? The mere fact that they had these markings meant there  _ was _ an end, and the fact that it involved Crowley’s ansaphone meant it likely wasn’t going to be too far in the future.

Aziraphale’s eyes stung and he felt a burning ire flare in his chest. He shrugged the pyjama shirt on and did up the buttons with trembling hands.

“Angel?”

“It’s fine,” Aziraphale croaked, fumbling with a particularly stubborn button.

Crowley stared at him, frowning slightly. After a pause, he sighed, “Yeah.” He got up and Aziraphale heard him making noise in the kitchen. He returned a few minutes later with a steaming mug of cocoa.

Six thousand years and he’d managed not to seriously question any Plans, Ineffable or otherwise. But this was beyond even his ability to chalk blatant discrepancies in the universe up to ineffability. This was  _ personal _ .

“We’re not even human,” Aziraphale complained.

Crowley rubbed his chest absently. “Yeah.”

He felt the question burn through him like fire, spreading from his heart. He didn’t dare say it, but it seared in his mind anyway.

_ Why? _


	3. Chapter 3

The question burned more comfortably in Crowley’s body, like a heated blanket wrapped around his soul. He sauntered and sassed his way through Hell and none of them thought for a moment that something other than their own plans might be afoot. But in the background, behind the flippant remarks and Crowley’s face, Aziraphale questioned.

_ Why? _

When he had slid back into his own skin, Aziraphale crushed his fingers together in his lap. A park bench seemed like an inappropriate place for an angel to question the will of God, and he jumped at Crowley’s dinner invitation. He felt as though he was flirting outrageously, both with Crowley and with danger, all through dinner and on into the walk back to Crowley’s flat.

The lair of a demon, after those wankers in Heaven had tried to murder him, seemed a fitting place for the question to finally burn through his teeth and escape into the universe.

“What I don’t understand,” he began, knotting his brows and his fingers together. He shook his head and took a moment to formulate the right words to explain himself. If he was going to question God, he was going to do it properly.

Elsewhere in the flat, the telephone rang twice, and then the ansaphone’s tinny approximation of Crowley’s voice answered it.

_ You know what to do. Do it with style _ .

“Why?” Aziraphale moaned. It was not the eloquent speech he had been aiming for, but it was what came out of his mouth. It burned through his lips, and hung in the air like an infernal hummingbird, dangerous and quick.

Crowley’s expression changed from a neutral contentment to abject horror.

Before Crowley could protest, and before Aziraphale could continue, the question he had asked coalesced into a swirling mote of flame. He took a startled step backward, even though he wasn’t completely surprised. He’d had doubts aplenty over the last six thousand years, and now they had caught him up.

Crowley looked like he was shouting something, but Aziraphale couldn’t hear him; he had slipped sideways out of reality and was careening through the aether as the culmination of his doubts consumed him. He tumbled through eternity, thousand eyes and six wings set aflame, screaming his rage and hurt at the empty void around him.


	4. Chapter 4

He woke in an expansive, darkly-adorned bed. Crowley sat in a chair next to him, although perched might have been a more apt description. He looked like a gargoyle on high alert, ready to swoop down on the first poor soul with the audacity to intrude on this private space. “Angel,” he crowed. “Aziraphale?”

Aziraphale sat up and examined his hands. They looked the same; he had expected to look different, to  _ feel _ different, but he felt like himself. “Crowley,” he answered softly. “I was Falling, I think. Did I dream it?”

Crowley frowned. “You smell the same. You look the same. I don’t know.”

Aziraphale concentrated, and his wings shifted sideways into Crowley’s bedroom, dropping feathers all over the bedspread. They were no longer the pure, fluffy white of a soft cloud; they were ash-white and flecked with grey. “Oh,” he breathed. He had never been terribly fond of the blinding white feathers, and these were, in his opinion, sublime. “Oh, I did.”

“Well,” drawled Crowley. “I don’t think you  _ Fell _ so much as—”

“Sauntered vaguely downward?” Aziraphale finished. “Yes, I rather think I did.” He frowned. “I don’t feel any different.” He put his wings out of the way and swung his legs off the side of the bed. “How long was I out?”

Crowley shrugged. “Couple of days.”

“Is it lunch time? That million-light-year swan dive has made me a bit peckish.”

“Are you trying to tempt me?” Crowley cheeked.

“Am I?” Aziraphale straightened his waistcoat. “Is it working?”

Crowley grinned. “Where d’you fancy?”

Aziraphale took a deep breath and said with a contented smile, “I think I’m rather in the mood for crepes.”

Later, but not very much later, someone he loved told him that the fire had burned away the words sprawled across his back, leaving a galaxy of freckles behind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was going to post this chapter by chapter but I can't handle myself so y'all can have the whole thing.


End file.
